The present invention generally pertains to shoplifting detection devices and is particularly directed to an improvement in the means for attaching shoplifting detection tags to articles of merchandise.
Shoplifting detection tags are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,987,754 to Minasy et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,481,428 to Charlot. One such use is in the protection of women's hand bags; wherein the shoplifting detection tag is attached to the hand bag to be protected by piercing the strap or some other portion of the hand bag with a large-headed pin and then inserting the pin shaft into a clutch mechanism within the tag. Clutch mechanisms are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,356 to Charlot and U.S. Pat. No. 4,221,025 to Martens et al.
Alternatively, articles such as hand bags may be protected by encirclement of the strap with a flexible-wire device, commonly referred to as a "lanyard", that includes a several-inch long piece of wire that has small loops at each end. The wire is passed around the strap, each loop end is secured under the head of the pin and the pin is inserted into the clutch mechanism of a shoplifting detection tag.
Of lesser popularity is the use of a clamping-action plate built into the shoplifting detection tag. By providing a plate hinged at one end of the tag and having a pin mounted at the free end of the plate for insertion into a clutch mechanism at the other end of the tag, a portion of the article to be protected may be clamped between the plate and the tag body when the pin is inserted into the clutch mechanism. Although this clamp-action method of tag attachment has been in use for over three decades, its popularity is diminishing due to its susceptibility to defeat and its unnecessary bulk, size and weight. The defeatable aspect is the susceptibility of the hinged plate to being pried away from the tag body to thereby break the plate, the tag body or the clutch mechanism.
The other methods described above, although more commonly used, also suffer from serious deficiencies. The puncture method is objectionable because it leaves a visible pin hole in some articles, particularly leather goods, and it cannot be used with any non-puncturable merchandise. The flexible-wire lanyard method is subject to easy defeat by cutting the wire. Increasing the diameter of the wire or hardening of the wire to resist cutting creates a level of inflexibility which inhibits the use of the lanyard on smaller articles.